I was standing
beside the white frame house which I had recently bought in
Mexico City, Mexico. The house (which had
cost about $100,000) was located in a secluded part of the town,
an area which seemed as safe and clean as an upscale American
suburb. I was well satisfied with my purchase.

Next door to my
house was a similar house which interested me. As I looked over
my neighbor's house, I became so interested, I climbed up on
a ladder and began looking around the eaves of the house. I could
actually see inside the attic, which I noticed was poorly
insulated. When I climbed back down, I mentioned to someone on
the ground that the house needed to have some insulation blown
into the attic. It even occurred to me that many of the houses in
this neighborhood needed insulation, and the lack of insulation
was the reason the houses were so cheap. I might even consider
buying some more houses, fix them up and insulate them properly,
and then sell them for a profit.

Interested in
what the inside of my neighbor's house might look like, I
walked inside to the kitchen, where I found a group of nine or
ten people gathered in the large room. They were mostly a young
group, in their 20s and 30s. Everyone seemed to be in a
festive mood, partially because the owner of the house (an older
woman) wasn't at home, and everyone had more liberty than usual.

I quickly
surmised that the others were playing some kind of game with each
other, and I wanted to join in. I was unclear about what the
rules of the game were, but I thought the game had something to
do with the way people were communicating with each other. When I
noticed a couple of pom-poms lying on the floor, I thought I
might be able to use them as part of the game. I picked up one of
the pom-poms and shook it back and forth at a young woman sitting
near me. She then also picked up a pom-pom and did the same thing
to me. We even stood up together in the middle of the room and
did a little routine. She was much better than I, and I basically
just followed her steps.

But I felt a
little silly, and quickly realized I wasn't capturing the heart
of the game in which the others were engaged. As I sat back down
in a chair, it quickly became obvious that the others were
actually playing some kind of word game on a piece of paper. I
also picked up a paper and began trying to understand the game.

Basically, I
figured out that the game consisted of a grid on the paper, into
which certain Spanish words were being written. Someone pointed
out to me that the first group of words ran diagonally from the
top left corner down to the bottom right corner. I was also shown
that the top horizontal line contained a series of letters and
that the words in the columns under those lines should end in the
letter that was at the top of the column. For example, the first
letter at the top left column was "l." I had figured
out that the word immediately under that letter should be some
form of the root word "libera ." I knew I
could use either the Spanish word "liberar" which meant
"to liberate" or the Spanish word "liberal"
which meant "liberal." I concluded that the right word
was "liberal", and I wrote the word in the space.

While I played
the game, I kept looking at the sheets of other people, copying
what they were writing. This wasn't considered cheating, because
we all were playing the game together, trying to help each other.
I was especially interested in what an intelligent-looking fellow
sitting on my right was writing. He seemed to be doing a better
job than anyone else.

It was clear to
all of us that we wouldn't be able to stay much longer in the
house. Just outside was a bus station. It was decided that we
would all take a bus to downtown Mexico City, and I was sent out
to buy the tickets.

When I walked
out and stepped up to the counter, I was given a sheet of tickets
which looked like blue postage stamps. I was surprised when I was
told they only cost about 25 cents. But I remembered
that things had always been cheaper in Mexico. When I had the
tickets, I turned to go back to give them to the others.

***

I had just
arrived in Portsmouth and was walking in
downtown, at the corner of Gallia Street and Gay Street, right
where my father had first had his real estate offices when I had
been a boy. As I walked up to the large plate glass windows at
the front of the office, I hesitated for a moment because two
police officers were standing in front of the windows and looking
in. But since I didn't think I needed to worry about the police,
I also stepped up to the windows and looked in.

I was intrigued
by what I saw. It looked as if the office was now used by a coin
shop, and various coins were displayed in the window. The
beautiful coins fascinated me and I focused on one coin with an
Indian Head. At first I thought the coin was gold, but when I saw
that the price was only about $70, I realized the
coin was simply an Indian head penny. I still liked the looks of
the coin, but I would prefer to have gold. I kept looking until I
saw a brilliant gold coin, probably a three-dollar piece, which I
would love to have. I would just like to carry the gold coin
around with me. However, I figured it would probably cost $700-$800. I thought I could go in and buy it with
a credit card. But I was unsure I wanted to pay that much for it.

As I continued
looking around the interior of the shop at the displayed items, I
was surprised to see a couple of old Oliver typewriters. They
appeared to be in excellent working condition. I knew I also had
a couple of these typewriters, but mine weren't working. I would
certainly like to have a working model. I wondered how much the
ones here cost.